


Inclinata Resurgit

by MidnightInked



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightInked/pseuds/MidnightInked
Summary: Rated M for adult themes and later lemons. A chance encounter, a break in a case, a devastating tragedy? How will Jace handle the fallout of his actions, can he forgive her, can he forgive himself? Was bringing down one of New York's biggest criminal organizations worth losing her? Losing himself? #clebastion #clace
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue 

December 23rd

"This is what you wanted, right?" She said evenly. "If you can't have me, no one can?" Her grip was firm on the pistol as it pressed against her temple, finger parallel to the trigger. 

"Clarissa please…" the black haired man begged. "I love you!"

"But you can't have me Sebastian," she replied, blindly stepping backwards. 

"Clary!" The blonde shouted. "Put the gun down! Don't make me do this!" He pleaded with her, his own gun reluctantly drawn, his aim as steady as the girl's. The girl simply shook her head, lifting her foot, raising herself onto the ledge of the rooftop. He hated this, hated the law in this moment. How it made him draw his gun on the victim, he knew, through every fiber of his being, that she would not fire on him or his partner, who struggled to hold Sebastian back. But she was the one with a gun, the second she pulled it out, his heart stopped. 

"Get him out of here!" The blonde growled towards his partner. 

"No!" Clary screamed, pointing her left hand towards Sebastian. "He stays!" She shouted. "He stays," she repeated calm, level. The blonde noticed Clary was calm during the entire situation, drawing the gun, having a gun drawn on herself, even in his previous encounters with her, she was calm. Until he tried to remove Sebastian, the reason they were all here. 

"Okay," he said to her sternly. "Can you tell me why he has to stay?" When she closed her eyes, he inched forward, cautiously approaching her like an injured animal, waiting for her to lash out. 

"Stay back!" She said unwavering. He froze, but didn't retreat. 

"I hear you Clary, if you lower the gun, he can stay. Can you do that for me?" Where the hell was his backup? 

"No." She said, her eyes flicking from dark haired man to the blonde. 

"Can you tell me why he has to stay?" Negotiation wasn't supposed to be like this. This call wasn't supposed to go down like this.

"He needs to feel it," she answered, maintaining her even demeanor. 

"Feel what Clary, what does he have to feel?" 

" _ Clarissa stop this now! I love you!"  _ The blonde chanced a glance back at the dark haired man. 

"Sir, please stop talking! Let me handle this!" He glared at Sebastian, he wanted nothing more than to punch his face, instead, he was risking his life to protect the bastard. 

"He needs to feel what it's like to have his heart ripped out," the blonde whipped his head back around at the sound of her voice, the slightest sign of her cracking. His eyes grew wide at what he saw. "To not be able to have what he wants. To watch it all fall through his fingers, unable to save it!" The gun was now pressed against her heart, her finger bent around the trigger. If it wasn't so damn scary, he would have found it poetic. 

"Clary," the blonde tried again. "It can be over! We have the evidence, we can get a conviction, we can protect you!" 

"Protect me?" She started laughing, swaying on the roof's ledge. "If the police could protect me, I wouldn't be on this ledge right now…" She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face. 

" _ Fire department is here, they only need a few minutes to deploy the airbag"  _ a voice said into his earpiece. 

"You're right Clary, we weren't there for you before, but we can be there for you now," he slowly removed his left hand from his gun and held it out to her. "Let me help you now," he pleaded with her. 

" _ Clarissa, don't listen to him, he's lying! He only wants to take you from me!"  _

The blonde shifted as he tried to look at Sebastian and Clary at the same time. The dark haired man was struggling in his partner's grasp, his face read and his knuckles white. 

"You can't help me, not this time," her eyes closed as she tilted her head up to the new falling snow, a slight breeze fanning her red hair out behind her.

"Step towards me Clary, away from the ledge," he asked her as calmly as he could. He was not trained for this, not really. He knew the basics, he'd done it before, but not like this, not when it got personal, how could he talk a girl out of jumping, ending her own life, when he had to stand there and protect the bastard that drove her to this consideration in the first place? 

"I'm sorry, Jace" she sighed. 

What happened next was both in slow motion and faster than he could comprehend as two gunshots echoed through the surrounding buildings. 

At the sound of the blonde's first name on Clary's lips, Sebastian broke free from the grip holding him back, rushing towards the girl. Her steady, calm demeanor broke as she shakily turned the gun from herself towards the dark haired man approaching her. The blonde screamed incoherently at her, while his partner tried to regain control of the dark haired man. 

"Inclinata resurgit," he heard her say, no louder than a whisper, before her body jerked and she disappeared from the rooftop, and the world went black. 


	2. The Beginning (Clary)

December 30th (the previous year)

Life didn't pick favorites, but parents did. They never admit it, especially to their children, but that doesn't mean it does not go unseen. Especially when one is a daughter who doesn't live and breath the company line. Despite my relatively clean record and performance in school, She's the rebel in the family. Her father let this fly in high school, indulging her proclivity to focus on the arts. When the time came for college though, her father's leniency lessened. He was anything but subtle in his attempts to draw her in. It started with him agreeing to pay her tuition and expenses, if she majored in something that he would find useful for his business practices. He would have preferred she went into business, finance, even a law degree, though he has her brother Jonathan wrapping that one up. The thing was, she wanted to be an art therapist, not exactly something that flows with the business tycoon that is Valentine Morgenstern, even if he did marry an artist himself. Undoubtedly people who work for and deal with her father on a regular basis need therapy, not that anyone has the gall to actually tell him such things. Her art skills themselves could come in handy if he needs a new logo or something for any of his construction or real estate businesses. Of course, he has her mom for that too, when she's not travelling for her job with the museum.

Surprisingly, it was her brother Jonathan who came up with a solution. Psychology focusing on business organization, and a minor in art. Not that she'd ever actually work for her father, but it does get her the necessary transcript for grad school and still has her father bankrolling everything. Now that does sound like Jonathan. It's a little manipulative, checks all the boxes, but primarily serves her own purposes. It's so Morganstern she was surprised her dad didn't catch onto it, though that would require him to actually pay attention to her life. Which he does, when it suits his own needs.

"Clarissa, I noticed you've RSVP'd without a plus one for yet another event...you're not hiding your boyfriend from the family are you dear?" Father asked from across the table. They were at Sapori's for the usual Sunday family dinner; a reservation that has been set in stone for as long as she could remember. Not all of them always made it, school, travelling for work, sports activities, friends, life in general has lead all to miss dinner at least once a month. Yet somehow no matter what, there's always two of them at the booth in the back corner. Tonight its all four of them.

"If I did have a boyfriend, would you blame me for hiding him from my family?" She replied with a smile. "Jonathan would go into overprotective big brother mode and scare him off, if he managed to survive that, you'd subtly find a way for us to break up, either from my own frustration about your constant remarks on how he's not good enough, or him from having to deal with the craziness that is my family…"

"I've never-!" Both Jon and her father said in unison.

"Zane Miller, 9th grade" She said pointedly to Jonathan. "Liam LeBlanc, freshman year of college," She added staring down her father.

"Miller was a player," Jon said casually as he took a sip of his wine.

"Oh, and you're one to talk!" She threw at him with a laugh. "How many girls did you go through in high school? Any of them last beyond the bedroom?" Jon shrugged and motioned to a nearby server for more wine.

"And LeBlanc?" She nudged her father.

"He's French," was all her father said by way of explanation. She rolled her eyes. So much for the Swiss being neutral. "

Adam, Billy, Dayne…" She started rattling off the names of guys she could remember who expressed an interest in her in high school. "And that's only the ones I know of… Jon, really, I know you always had someone from the team looking after me, even years after you left." She crossed her arms over her chest, unlady like for our upscale dinner. "I wouldn't be surprised if you have them tailing me in college too". Both her brother and father gave her smirks. Fantastic. Though her father favored Jon and mostly ignored her, it pleased and displeased her that the two of them schemed together to look out for her.

"So there's no man in your life Clary?" Her mother prods with a smile.

"No mom, the two men in my life are already more than enough to handle…" She choked on a bite of food, she knew Clary was right. While her father doesn't pay all that much attention to her, what attention he does give her is more than enough to handle, and Jonathan? He's an entirely different, they teased and tormented each other for a year in high school, he was a senior and she a freshman. He had a well established reputation, soccer star, player, troublemaker, though still academically promising. It was challenging a lot of the time trying to be herself, rather than Jon's little sister. The women's soccer coach tried to get her to tryout, until she discovered Clary's brother hogged all of the athletic abilities, while the jersey chasers tried to befriend Clary in hopes of getting an in with her brother. Their mistake though, neither of the Morganstern children were that stupid and they only got themselves blacklisted for trying to use Clary.

That was one of the better parts about having Jon as a brother. While he hated having Clary at school with him, as any teenage boy would, that didn't stop him from still being her brother. Jon and his closest friends could tease her, torment her, anyone else that did saw the overprotective brother shining through. She did her best to make it easier on him, most of it came naturally. They travelled in different circles, she took the bus home or caught a ride with friends, he stayed late for practice. While he was being Mr. Popular in the cafeteria, she was in the courtyard sketching or goofing off with her few friends. It also helped they looked absolutely nothing alike. Jon had dad's tall, lean swiss genes which extended to his platinum blonde hair while Clary was a touch over five feet and bright red hair, a near miniature of their mother. While Clary had her emerald green eyes, Jon's were such a dark green that in most lighting, they could be mistaken for black, adding to his imitation of their father, who did actually have black eyes.

"Honestly I'm surprised you let Simon through the gates to be my friend." She smiled at the thought of Simon.

"You were six, I hardly thought you two would be friends for life…" her father said with a chuckle. True, Simon and Clary were nearly inseparable, She lost count of the number of times she had coerced, blackmailed, and bribed him into attending family dinners with her when it would otherwise just be Clary and her father.

"Anyways," her father continued. "The nephew of a colleague of mine just moved into town a few weeks ago, he's rather handsome."

"Valentine…" her mother warned but the look on his face left no room for debate.

"And to which event is he escorting me to?" She asked cooly, taking a sip of the honeyed sweet dessert wine. She'd seen this game play out several times with her brother. Though he was almost always half a step ahead of the game and a very willing player.

"Tomorrow's New Year's Eve ball of course," her father said, as if there weren't any other events in the near future where a lady would have an escort in high society.

"Tomorrow? That's much too soon, like you said, I didn't RSVP with a plus one." It would be rude, of course to show up with a plus one after denying one before, especially so close to the event. It threw off seating arrangements, catering counts, time at the valet if they didn't ride with her parents…

"It won't be a problem Clarissa, surely everyone will be too stunned into happiness by you having an escort to notice." His commentary put a halt to my thoughts, one because he was telling her that short of hospitalization, she wasn't getting out of this, and two, it would serve to strengthen the Morgenstern family name, which gave her leverage later on, if she survived, and a bruise if she didn't.

It was eerie, these messages she could pick up from her father, hidden behind caring phrases in the look of his eyes, a set to the shoulder or a motion of the hand. Reading people, reading into their actions, their motives, it was a skill she both loved and despised. Friend or foe? Did someone really want to be her friend, or did they see her as a connection in society, a higher rung on the social ladder. It kept her friend circle small, with Simon being the closest of course, it was nice, meeting someone as herself, too young to know anything about all that, and too middle class to care.

On the other hand, it made situations like these with her father uncomfortable. She knew too much, and didn't display enough. It made her come off as having grown into an obedient daughter, starting to toe the line, that she was drawn into the life he always envisioned for his family. The concession of an escort on such short notice was another stitch in the seam, closing the gap on her freedom. One year, four months and two weeks until graduation.

One year, four months and two weeks until she can hop on a plane and leave her father behind. Another courtesy of Jon. When the contract was drawn up just before her first day of freshman year at NYU, the wording was very specific. Her father would pay tuition and expenses, as long as she pursued and obtained a degree that could be beneficial to his empire. Could be. Jon was kind enough to make sure that their father's lawyer didn't put anything into the contract that actually bound her to work for her father. He wanted to work for father himself, but he saw how much it weighed her down.

"Of course, you're right father," She leaned forward, feigning interest in his upcoming answers. "What can you tell me about him?"


End file.
